As my colleague Virginia said earlier today, “For NPR nerds, it doesn’t get much better than “Science Friday”.

Our Metabolomic Eye image has now been featured on Science Friday as the Picture of the Week with an article written by Emma Bryce. Science Friday is one of my long time favorite NPR programs hosted by Ira Flatow and does an amazing job of communicating science to the wider general audience. This is a role that is desperately needed right now as the lack of science funding is increasingly threatening to put the US and indeed the global science population behind where it could be.

If we as a society do not fight the politicization of science when it comes to the science of climate change, then what comes next? Genetics? Medicine? The role that public education programs like Science Friday plays in our society is critical to educating and creating an informed public that will expect more from our leaders.

What can you do to keep America competitive in science and technology? Vote. Contact your representatives and senators and tell them to support science. Most of all, expect more from our lawmakers because what most people don’t realize is the time constant for science, education and technology investment and payoff is longer than 4 year election cycles or even 4-5 year grants and every advance builds on the ones before it. For instance, the Internet is based on basic research investments made 40 years ago… Think about that for a while. The same is true for medicine as the major advances in medicine, vaccines, anesthetics, antisepsis, clean H20, antibiotics and antivirals, surgery, and radiology were all built on investments made almost 100 years ago or more. Science, engineering and education are long term investments. They provide the basis for benefits beyond election year cycle time constants.

Where do you want us to be as a society in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years?